JPMorgan to Roll Out Digital Brokerage Platform With Free or Discounted Trading

August 22, 2018

JPMorgan Chase is about to compete directly with broker-dealers with a soon-to-be unveiled investment app that will give retail clients access to free or discounted trading, CNBC writes.

JPMorgan has been working on the app, dubbed You Invest, for more than two years, according to the news channel’s website. It’s aimed at people with no investing experience, particularly millennials, and Chase clients who invest via other firms, Kelli Keough, JPMorgan’s global head of digital wealth management, tells CNBC.

The new platform has no minimum account opening requirement and offers 100 free trades in stocks and ETFs in the first year to anyone who downloads the app when it becomes available in the coming days, according to the publication.

Merrill Edge, Bank of America’s digital brokerage offering, comes with 30 free trades per month, but only for accounts with $50,000 or more, according to the website. All other Merrill Edge users get charged $6.95 per trade, CNBC writes. Meanwhile, Chase Private Client accounts, which require at least $100,000 in assets, get unlimited free trading its new app, according to the website.

Considering that online trading at JPMorgan cost $24.95 per trade as recently as last year, it’s a “remarkable turnaround,” CNBC writes.

Meanwhile, the company is also considering other incentives to lure clients to move assets from other brokerages to its platform, according to the website.

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You Invest also offers free access to JPMorgan’s equities research and a tool for constructing portfolios based on risk tolerance and investing objectives, CNBC writes. While that already sounds like the domain of robo-advisors, JPMorgan plans to roll out an actual robo on the You Invest platform in January, Jed Laskowitz, who runs You Invest, tells the website. And while he declined to comment about 2016 comments from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon about possibly offering the robo for free, Laskowitz hinted at the firm’s strategy, according to CNBC.

"If you think about our pricing structure, it will be very similar with what we’re doing with our brokerage platform," he tells the website, speaking about the planed robo-advice service. "We’re rewarding people for doing more with Chase."